Liberal insider John Delacourt to lobby for major corporate clients

Liberal insider John Delacourt has hopped from the Liberal party research bureau straight into some prime lobbying gigs for primo corporate clients — on pipelines, telecoms, agriculture and banking.

Delacourt recently registered as a lobbyist for Bell Canada (BCE Inc.) to deal with a range of issues, including “lawful access obligations” and any Copyright Act or Broadcasting Act amendments.

He registered for other big names, including the banking network Interac Association and Syngenta Canada — a giant agri-business company currently in the middle of a major merger — to deal with issues like crop protection, pesticides and biotech.

He also registered for the steel manufacturer Evraz Inc. North America, which manufactures pipeline and energy sector products, in a filing that says he will be “engaging government to discuss partnership and expansion opportunities, specifically as it relates to the energy sector and the oil sands.” Delacourt is not the first lobbyist at Ensight to register to lobby for them. Former CBC TV host Don Newman also recently registered to lobby for Evraz.

Other Delacourt registrations include the Canadian Beverage Association and the Association of Canadian Port Authorities, which is looking for port infrastructure money.

Delacourt announced he was jumping from the party research bureau into lobbying early last month. As a party staffer he was not bound by the five-year lobbying ban set out in the Accountability Act. He’s the brother of iPolitics columnist Susan Delacourt and had worked for former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff in 2010.

Susan Smith over at Blue Sky Strategies registered to lobby for the travel company Sunwing Travel Group for issues related to work permits and “reciprocal employment of Canadian and international pilots.”

Jason Clark, who is new at Crestview Strategy, registered for the social media giant Facebook, for Bruce Power on the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, and for the Canadian Gaming Association. The gaming association hired him to lobby on single-event sports betting following the defeat of NDP MP Brian Masse’s Bill C-221, which would have legalized betting on single sporting events in Canada. The Liberals had a post-election change of heart on the bill last year. That bill had almost cleared the Senate in the last Parliament, when it was Joe Comartin’s Bill C-290 and received all-party support.

Other clients Clark posted include Music Canada for copyright policy, Mercy for Animals Canada for updating Canada’s animal transportation laws, and the Mosaic Company for “potash mine development and overseas exports.”